William S. Harney

William Selby Harney (22 August 1800-9 May 1889) was a US Army Major-General who commanded the Department of the West at the start of the American Civil War in 1861.

Biography
William Selby Harney was born in Haysboro, Tennessee in 1800, and he was commissioned into the US Army in 1818 due to his brother's connections to Andrew Jackson. Harney helped to evict the pirate Jean Lafitte from Louisiana before fighting in the Black Hawk War and befriending Jefferson Davis in the process. In 1834, he caused a scandal by beating a slave woman to death with his cane, but, during the Second Seminole War, when his men accidentally shot the wife of Seminole war leader Ar-pi-uck-i, he refused to use her as a bargaining chip, instead setting her up comfortably outside of the army camp so that her husband could recover her. During the Mexican-American War, he served as a dragoon colonel, and he was later court-martialled for refusing to leave the city of Monterrey after Zachary Taylor signed an armistice with the Mexican Army. He later fought at the Battle of Cerro Gordo, the Battle of Contreras, the Battle of Churubusco, and the Battle of Chapultepec. In 1849, he was given command of Military Department No. 5, which comprised almost all the settled portion of Texas, and he fought against the Sioux and, on 2-3 September 1855, he oversaw the massacre of 250 Native Americans at Ash Hollow, Nebraska. He briefly commanded troops during the Utah War and dealt with guerrillas in Bleeding Kansas, and he served as commander of the Department of Oregon until he was relieved due to starting the Pig War with Britain. On 14 June 1858, he was promoted to Brigadier-General, and he was given command of the Department of the West in St. Louis. After the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Harney attempted to prevent Missouri from seceding to join the Confederacy, but his Democrat sympathies made him suspect among the state's Unionists, as well as his agreement to trust the Governor of Missouri, Confederate sympathizer, Claiborne Fox Jackson, with remaining loyal to the Union. Francis Preston Blair Jr. convinced President Abraham Lincoln to replace Harney with Nathaniel Lyon, who was against allowing Jackson to have free rein, leading to war in the state. Harney was later offered a command in the Confederate States Army by Robert E. Lee, and he retired in 1863 after he was not given another command. President Andrew Johnson later sent him to negotiate peace treaties with the Indian tribes of the Great Plains, and he died on Orlando, Florida in 1889. Harney County, Oregon is named for him.